Super Black taking a look at Sandown

SUPER BLACK Racing’s car for Bathurst will be making a public appearance at the next round of the V8 Supercars series in Sandown, Victoria.

Work is progressing at Ford Performance Racing, who are building the car for the fledgling New Zealand team and although it won’t be racing at Sandown, it will be there for spectators to look at.

Greg Hahn, the head of operations for Super Black Racing, was in Melbourne last week at FPR’s impressive base to see how work was going on and going through more details about the car.

Andre Heimgartner, one of the team’s drivers, will be at Sandown to greet fans and help grow the buzz about Super Black Racing.

However, they have chosen not to race at Sandown, which is the first endurance round of the season.

‘‘It was a possibility but resource wise we didn’t want to put ourselves under that stress,’’ Hahn told the Sunday Star-Times.

‘‘Bathurst was always the goal and that’s where we’ll debut.

‘‘The feedback I’m getting from the industry is that although we’re going in humble and very much as underdogs, people aren’t taking us

Bathurst was always the goal and that’s where we’ll debut. Greg Hahn - head of operations for Super Black Racing

lightly, we’ll have the best equipment on the line on the day and we’ll have two drivers who have all the ability to be up there with the pack.’’

An issue Hahn and everyone at the team has to deal with is the legacy of Team Kiwi Racing, the last New Zealand team in the V8 series, which continually had money problems and had to pull out in 2009.

While there is a lot of positivity about this new team entering the category, there are also concerns that they’ll have the same problems Team Kiwi did.

‘‘We have definitely come across some of the legacy stuff and it’s something that’s been presented to me a number of times, that people hope this isn’t another Team Kiwi,’’ Hahn said.

‘‘That’s part of the reason why we haven’t been in a great rush to sign up sponsors.

‘‘We’re inviting them to talk to us and we don’t want to be standing there by ourselves next year, but that’s why we’ve got the likes of Paul Radisich as friends of Super Black so we can learn from those mistakes and collectively do this as best we can.

‘‘I think people have seen past TKR and that there’s a new national team that has a new culture and is a breath of fresh air.’’